Group Sense PDA clamshell-smartphone

By
04.23.2003 :: 10:12AM EST

Is it weird for me to wish that they (meaning manufacturers in general) would stop releasing Palm OS 4 devices? No one sells brand new computers with Windows 98 (or even 2000) anymore, right? Well, Group Sense PDA apparently finds OS 4 worthy of a couple of brand new handhelds. The two have pretty much the same specifications: GSM/GPRS (900/1800), Dragonball VZ 33MHz, 16 MB ROM/RAM, 4 MB Flash, 900 mAh battery (offering 100 hour standby and two hours talk-time), and a 2.2″, 176 x 240 pixel, 260K color D-TFD screen (a little on the low-end there). One is a PDA-with-an-antenna-style device, and the other is a clamshell with an integrated 352 x 288 pixel camera. One interesting thing about each of these handhelds is that they don't have the usual group of Palm application buttons. I think these might be the first Palm handhelds I've seen that just don't have those buttons at all. I'm sure it's not the first, but it's the first time I've noticed. These phones look a bit on the cheap side. They're definitely not for the geeky smartphone connoisseur, but they might serve to bring in a lot more people to the smartphone market–with the right pricetag. Check these two phones out at GSPDA.com, and thanks to infoSync (where you can see higher resolution pics than at the manufacturer's site) for the link.

USER COMMENTS 6 comment(s)

muhahahhaha(10:19am EST Wed Apr 23 2003)im so good first again and again again again and again ahahahahah – by BATOSI

Which is why the T|W was running 4.1 (or whatever) on a DB-33? – by :-)

Re:(4:55pm EST Wed Apr 23 2003)it can but I think it would cripple it. They Support XSCALE, OMAP and others. Also -I dont think OS5 can adhere to the GSM stack, thats why you dont see cell opions much – that is, unles they fixed it. – by TheZodiac

wha???? This is incorrect. the reason there are still OS 4 devices – partuclualrly smartphones – is because it is cheaper to make (dragonball vz chips are much cheaper than ARM), and the DB draws less power. As to OS 5 running on Dragonball VZ – no, it can't be done. OS 5 is basically just OS 4 recompiled for ARM afterall (well, that and they added a few things like audio API and hi-res API).– by ScottC